THE LITHE LION 247 couple of hundred yards apart, and adjacent villages are correspondingly scattered over wide expanses of morasses, that time was needed to allow people to congregate, there being no evidence of their coming it was deemed inadvisable to prolong delay here. Moreover, the malaria which held the other white man in its grip intensified so seriously as to render a quick journey back to Kodok essential.

Giving news of intended return in a few days' time at a picturesque meshra named Kwoin, near a village most mistakenly called " Kool," and leaving sandal and ghayassa behind with instructions to cut wood in the interior, we sped downriver in haste and anxiety.

A few hours from the mouth a great cry was raised by the crew, and expectant faces were excitedly turned to us. " Asud !" called Faragallah, pointing over the plain to the fringe of the bush some three or four hundred yards to the west. How one envies the sight of these men, who, unconcernedly chatting—the busy ones directing the course of the boat, the idle ones napping, or feeding, or dreaming—can spot a live point amongst the confusion of herbage and trees, half covered and distant. With my glass I discovered the slow, lithe walk of the great yellow-brown lion just inside the belt, and moving away.

An opportunity seemed to be before us, but fate had already decreed otherwise ; for illness could allow no delay, and communication with the